Title: SEMANTIC AND COMPOSITIONAL FEATURES OF THE CANTICLE GENRE IN THE CZECH SPIRITUAL TRADITION
Abstract: The XVII century became a turning point for the Czech Republic, a time of choosing a certain historical and cultural path, changing the previous sociocultural paradigm.Having lost political independence as a result of the decisive battle on White Mountain in 1620, the Czechs acquired national and cultural immunity, which was strengthened many times under the influence of the re-Catholicization process, helping to preserve the Czech mentality, historical and zemstvo patriotism and Czech culture in difficult times for the people.This led to the formation of new forms of religiosity, both local and general cultural, which included the cult of saints, processions, sermons, the growth of monasteries, religious brotherhoods, and pilgrimage centers.In this way, the Czechs are trying to preserve their identity in new historical conditions, when their lands became part of the megaspace of the Habsburg Empire.At this time, there was a process of intensive joining of the Czech Republic into the new pan-European cultural space, re-Catholicization and religious rehabilitation of the country within the Catholic world.In the Baroque era (XVII-XVIII centuries), it was within the framework of Catholicism that the program of preserving one's ethnocultural identity was carried out.It is necessary to especially highlight such a phenomenon as baroque patriotism, clearly manifested in the musical and literary genre of the cantional, which gained wide popularity among the Czech people and contributed to the preservation and development of their ethnocultural and ethnohistorical identity.Therefore, the cantional as a genre is representative in terms of expressing the Czech cultural mentality and worldview of the era.Cantional (Lat.Cantionale, from cantio -[spiritual] song; Germ.Cantional, Kantional; Czech Kancionál) -is a collection of polyphonic spiritual chants of